Sunday, February 19, 2006

What's with the icons?

My sister made all these oh-so-fabulous icons for me to use for my reviews (isn't she talented?) So here's what they all mean:

The brain indicates a book that made my little head work hard. A classic, a winner of some snobby literary award, or just a book that contained some allusions that I was proud to understand, and lots of others that went completely over my head. Sadly, I fear appearances of this icon may be few and far between.

The donut and muffin are for my two kinds of dessert books. I got the idea for these particular icons from one of my favorite books, Faking It by Jennifer Crusie. They use it in reference to men, but the analogy holds for books too, I think.[Character Nadine says,] "According to Grandma, there are two kinds of men in the world, doughnuts and muffins. . . . Doughnuts are the guys that make you drool. They're gorgeous and crispy and covered with chocolate icing . . . Whereas muffins just sort of sit there all lumpy, looking alike, no chocolate icing at all.""So doughnuts are good," Davy says."Well, yeah, for one night," Nadine says. "But then the next morning, they're not crisp anymore, and the icing is all stuck to the bag, . . . and they're icky and awful. You can't keep a doughnut overnight. . . . But a muffin is actually better the next day. Muffins are for the long haul and always taste good." So, while I might enjoy a donut, I'm never going to read it again. Muffins are keepers.

The lips mean, yes, this book has sex. Some people have a problem with this. Me, not so much.

The dagger is for, you guessed it, violence. I for one, do not like a gory book. If someone gets murdered or injured, I really don't need the details. So here's warning if you're like me and want to avoid the blood.

The teacup graces reviews for books that are cozy reads. Lovely books that you want to curl up with on an icky day.

For tear-jerkers. I don't usually read sad books (I don't do depressing), but occasionally it happens.

I'm calling this the "Jennie approved" icon. See, it's a little me doing a thumbs-up. I'm going to use this for books that I really, really loved and hated getting to the end of. Books that I will definitely own and reread later.

4 comments:

Jessica
said...

I know this is an old post, but I just discovered your blog (linked from Rosina Lippi/Sara Donati). A friend bought me, "Faking It," because she said that when she saw the book in the store, a little voice told her that she needed to buy it for me. I am not one to argue with the voices in my own head, much less the voices in other peoples', so I told her I'd read it and that if the voice in her head was listening, there was a pair of shoes on sale at Robinsons'-May that I was eyeing. Anyway, Faking It was hilarious; I loved the chararacters' quirks, and how unique everyone was, with their idiosyncrasies and random sayings. The donut/muffin comparisons was one of my favorites!

This is kind of a lot of work if you actually do it, but I always want to click on your little Jennie Approved icon and go to a list of all the books you awarded this to. It's a selfish request! I just want to skip back rather than clicking through all the archives. Thanks for all the great book ideas!!!

Christina--I have actually thought about doing that. And it wouldn't be too hard to go back through my posts and put tags on them. Someday I will get to it. But until then, you can always click on the link for the reviews "Rated 8-10" -- I generally give anything with that grade a Jennie Approved icon. ;)